Lessons my father taught us

A few days ago my father passed away after leading a long and remarkable life. The end was peaceful and I was at his bedside.

As one does in these situations, I have been reflecting on his life and the lessons he taught us, or at least, tried to teach us. Most were from the examples he set, because it was rare for him to sit down and give us advice. Of many, here are the most important ones:

Treat everyone with respect:  In the interactions he had with the outside world, it did not matter what religion you belonged to or what social standing you had. In the highly stratified society of India, this was not normal. Hindus treated Muslims badly, and I am sure it was true the other way round. It was considered beneath your dignity to talk to a street sweeper, or a kitchen maid. Not so in our household. We had a staff of three people running our house (“servants” as they are called in India---a term I dislike now). They were all Muslims. We treated them with full respect, as if they were members of our family. When an elderly aunt of my father came visiting, she refused to eat food cooked by a Muslim. “There is a restaurant in the next block, perhaps you can eat there,” was the unexpected response she got.

Be curious: Our house was full of books on all types of subjects, and we got a pile of Indian and Western magazines. Among what we got were Time, Life, National Geographic, and Readers Digest. Even the magazines were treated with respect…the National Geographic magazines were so highly revered that they ended up being bound in leather jackets. Through them, we grew up dreaming of visiting places displayed in these magazines and becoming aware of what was going on in the world, not just in India.

Do the best you can: This is one advice I remember him telling me when I was heading to Mumbai for studies. He, of course, exemplified it. This was not just about his medical knowledge and skills, but also hobbies. My parents decided to take up bird watching as a hobby and pretty soon excelled at it. So much so that my mother was credited with finding a rare bird in our area and her name appeared in the local newspaper.

Be totally honest: In a country where underreporting your income income—generating “black money”--- is a common practice, my father accounted for every penny he earned. In one instance, when buying an apartment, the seller wanted a large portion of price in the form of black money. My father mentioned that he had none. The seller was astonished and taken aback. He asked my father to create some by underreporting his income to the tax authority.

Find joy in everything: This is what kept him going in his final years. He did not find a place he had been to a thousand-time grow stale. Everything was “aarey wah!” ---how splendid! Every sunset, every piece of music, or every cardinal who came to sit on our bird feeder. “Aarey wah!” A corollary to this attitude was that he never complained about anything. Even a ten percent full glass was considered to be totally full.

Never give up: My father had iron determination as displayed in his habit of walking. (See my Blog Post dated 9/1/2014, titled “Keeps on Walking”). He walked two times every day irrespective of weather. This was feasible because he went to California to live with my sister during our winter. He used to participate in a charity walk of 20 miles well into his 80s. When he could not walk unaided, he walked with walking stick. When that was not enough, he walked with increasingly complex walkers. When he could not walk around our neighborhood, he walked on our driveway. When dementia began eating into his reason, he started opening locked doors in our absence to get out of the house and satisfy the urge to walk. After being committed to a nursing home during the last year of his life, he insisted on walking with the aid of two staff members and a walker. Even in the last week of his existence, he wanted me to pull him out of his wheelchair and go for a walk, although his feeble legs had lost all muscle power and he could not even stand up.

One gets to choose friends but not the family member. It was by sheer luck that we had him as a part of our family and for me, as father.

Now if I can implement even a portion of what he taught me. ;-)